PicoBlog

I was asked this question on Twixter this week, and it’s one I’ve seen people talk about a lot. Or rather, I should say, I have many times seen people argue over certain movies, debating if they are horror films or thrillers. Silence of the Lambs and Psycho are the two most common argued about. I’ve been to many conventions with panels dedicated to “Is it horror?”

If you consult Google on the question, you will see most sources giving the same response: “Horror movies are meant to horrify, thrillers are meant to thrill!” I don’t know what exhausted film history teacher threw that out first, but it’s such a cop out answer that it makes me irate to the point that blood trickles out of my ear.

This conversation can’t be had without state three rather large caveats up front that can be used against everything else I’m about to say. First, you have to look at the horror and thriller genres as a Venn diagram. There is a crazy amount of overlap. Without doubt they use many of the same building blocks, tools, and go-to devices to tell their stories. You can’t talk about slasher films without mentioning Psycho. You also can’t talk about Hitchcock-style thrillers without it coming up.

Second, every stylistic narrative choice, thematic concern, trope, or screenwriting “rule” I am about to mention or cite will have a very obvious filmic example that goes against its grain. There’s no 100% on this topic, and don’t let me or anyone else say otherwise.

Third, there are legions of film bros, critics, and other such douche-canoes out there that will got to their grave refusing to acknowledge horror as a legit genre, and will always decontextualize horror films they like as thrillers so as not to sully themselves. So again, there will be arguments to every example I give.

My initial tweet response to this big question was a brief character-count friendly: “It comes down to tone and whether your reversals are based in the abject or with reveals. It also comes down to your antagonist being a “monster” of some type (even if they are human).”

Starting with tone— horror films are tonally versatile. They can be camp, they can be comedic, they can be grounded, they can be very serious, yet still exist in a fantastical world that plays by its own rules.

Thrillers are almost universally grounded in our real world. Even when they push into becoming over the top action film, the stakes and risks are grounded in reality. Because Thrillers are adjacent to mysteries, and mysteries have been around forever, it is possible to push thrillers into camp (historical or otherwise). Knives Out is a great example this. But when we think of thrillers that are close to horror films, we're usually talking about movies like Seven, I Saw The Devil, or Parasite.

Tonally, there's wiggle room with thrillers, but not a ton. This has to do with tension. In my book (available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH2H6LPN) I talk about four tension models. Horror, again, is versatile. Thrillers work best when tension is a slow and steady rise. If you go for laughs you run the risk of deflating that tension. By the lame definition, thrillers are meant to thrill, you want to keep your audience on the edge of their seat.

A horror film uses the SCARE. Scares work best once the audience is lulled into a sense of calm. So in horror you WANT to deflate. Again, this is why horror has an easier time being comedic. It's a way to put the viewer at ease before you scare them again. Thrillers use scares at times, but they hinge more upon REVEALS.

Most thrillers, regardless of subgenre (political, action, crime), tend to involve a mystery or criminal element. The protagonist is generally after a truth or has a very specific and tangible goal (like a heist, or finding a killer, or getting away with something). This could be a cop, a reporter, or a regular person who has become a victim. OR, it could be flipped and we’re focused on the person trying to get away with something (like most crime thrillers focused on the criminal). Regardless of the details, they’ve stepped outside the rules of basic society.

The tension is based on when they are caught, or when they figure out what has happened. It may be a literal mystery to solve, or it may just be digging for a truth. But that path is one of reveals. The lead in a thriller has goals and reasons to their actions, where as the leads in a horror film tend to narratively be out to survive. That’s not to say leads in a horror film can’t have motivations or even out to solve a mystery, SUBTEXTUALLY, I am saying their PLACE IN THE STORY is to survive, and in so will find a truth (I they are looking for one). Where as in a thriller, the lead’s functional role is to be the one bringing things to light.

That’s a bit complicated, so here’s an example. SCREAM is considered a slasher/who-dun-it hybrid because the killer is always amongst the core cast of friends. As the lead in a horror film, Sidney’s job is to survive. She is not there to chase the mystery of who Ghostface is. That is revealed to us as the story chugs along. Sid has to deal with her mama-drama, her feelings about Billy, and to stop living in fear.

Compare that to Zodiac, where multiple characters are also looking for a masked killer. In this case though, that is their role within the structure of the movie, to find clues and reveal aspects of the mystery that advance the plot.

My universal term for beats in a movie’s story is “reversal.” These could be big act breaks, or small moments of character advancement. Anything that changes what the audience knows and believes is going on. Thrillers and horror films obviously both keep their viewers on edge, but structurally speaking, the reversals in a thriller are going to be reveals, and in a horror films they are going to be scares— abject things that rattle the viewer. That is not to say thrillers can’t scare, and horror can’t reveal, they can— but they more you go against the grain, the more the movie becomes labelled the other genre.

The last determining factor is how the antagonist is presented. Specifically, how human are they? If they are not human, if they are a supernatural-- you're making a horror film. BUT, here's where those argued about movies cross-over. Hannibal Lecter, Normal Bates, and John Doe are technically human, but have the qualities of monsters. This is what throws people off, and I love it.

A monstrous madman walks the middle of that Venn diagram and causes genre confusion. And sometimes, that makes for the best kind of movie!

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